I picked the sandbar — at the base of a cliff on Mexico’s side of the Rio Grande — last night because I thought it would be a quiet spot.  We had spent Saturday morning interacting with customs, ferry captains, guides and the people of Boquillas. I was looking for a bit of solitude.

But less than minute after we landed, William Gonzales galloped up on his horse on his commute back to Boquillas.  He had spent the last five days working with his brother and a friend at a candelilla camp and had run out of food. He was also set to row the ferry back and forth across the Rio Grande the next day to bring tourists to town. He would ride along the river until the cliffs forced him to swim his horse across and upstream.

Outside of ranching, harvesting wax from candelilla plants is one of the oldest industries along this reach of the Rio Grande. The basic operation is to rip out the tubular plants and then smash them while they boil in a mild acid. The wax floats to the top, is scraped off the surface and then set aside to dry.

After a week of work, the three men produced about 75 kilos of wax, which was hauled out by two burros the day before we arrived. The men expect to sell the wax for $4 a kilo. That comes out to $20 a day for each of the men. The wax they sell is used in products ranging from lip gloss to fake flowers.

The next morning, Jessica and I paddled off to find the camp and were met by Fidencio Gonzales, William’s older brother.

“What you make in a day in the U.S. you make here in a month,” Fidencio said.

Fidencio is no stranger to hard work. He is one of the Diablos, a famous crew of firefighters the U.S. government occasionally hires to fight forest fires across the West. Fidencio has worked in California and Montana. He loves the work, but there hasn’t been enough fire or the political will to bring the Diablos across the river recently. Fidencio has not worked for three years.

So he collects wax and fishes a bit. Today, he will go looking for burros that have either escaped or are wild. It’s similar to the stories we heard in town.

Joaquin Sanchez Luna is 84 years old. He grew up and lived on a ranch 8 miles outside of town. He commuted to the oil fields of West Texas occasionally to work, but what he wanted to do was tend to his goats.

Then the well went dry and he had to move to town. Now he plays guitar and sings in town for tips from the tourists. It’s not his favorite work. He also tends to a small garden that he keeps going by saving water in old pop bottles. Drinking water is delivered to homes for three days and then not delivered for three days. His flowers do best if they get water every day.

It’s a good life, he said. He hopes the well on his ranch comes back soon so he, or someone, can go back to ranching the land.

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